The nations omitted in the list must now be noticed, so far as they seem to be of a like high antiquity. In Deut. ii. there is mention of several tribes or nations which had been destroyed by other tribes or nations which reached Palestine or its neighbourhood before the Israelite occupation. Certain of these are called Rephaim ; others not. The particulars are as follows, as far as they relate to our present subject Emim, Rephaim, succeeded by Moabites (Deut. ii. 9-11).
2. Horim, succeeded by Edomites (ver. 12, 22).
3. Zamzummim, elsewhere called Zuzim (Gen. xiv. 5), Rephaim, succeeded by Ammonites (Dent. ii. 19-21).
4. Avim, succeeded by Caphtorim, that is, Philis tines (ver. 23).
5. Anakim, here mentioned as Rephaim (ver. 21), still occupying the south of Palestine at the time when the Israelites entered it.
The Avim were probably also a Rephaite nation, for as late as David's time giants were found among the Philistines. Elsewhere in Palestine the Israel ites seem to have found, besides the three sons of Anak,' or the Anakim of Hebron, Og, the king of Bashan, who remained of the remnant of Rephaim' (ii. I), a man of gigantic stature. The position of these Rephaim is that of a few power ful chiefs among the Canaanites and Philistines, representing tribes destroyed by Hebrews, the only exceptional case being that of the Philistines, if, as we suppose, the Avim were Rephaim, for in that case the former must have first attacked, but ultimately changed their policy, and abstained from annihilating the older population.
At an earlier time we find a very different condi tion of the country. The powerful confederacy of
which Chedorlaomer was chief, attacked and con quered, besides the kings of the cities of the plain, the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horim, Amalekites, and Amorites. Here the Canaanites occupy a very inferior position in the south and east of Palestine, but one Canaanite nation being mentioned, and besides undoubted Rephaites, the Horim probably of the same stock, and the ancient and pedigree less nation of Amalek.
We thus find an indication of an old population of Palestine from both Canaanites and He brews, and especially remarkable for their great height. That they were in race still more remote from their successors than has usually been held, has been argued from the Anakim's being spoken of as of the Nephilim' (Num. xiv. 33), the term applied to the giants before the Flood, where it is said, The Nephilim were in the earth in those days' (Gen. vi. 4). On this subject, compare The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, 2d ed., pp. 80-82, and 284, 285, where it is maintained that the Nephilim were a pre-Adamite race.
In conclusion, the list of Noah's descendants in Gen. x. gives the most valuable information as to the primmval civilized world ; this information being fullest in reference to the countries of which Palestine or Syria was the centre. It satisfactorily accounts for the common characteristics of the Caucasian race, but apparently does not treat of the other great stocks, and, so far as its evidence goes, we have no certainty that they were de scended from Noah.—R. S. P.